Sif Muna

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"I know many secrets..."

Sif Muna the Loreminder is a contemplative but powerful deity, served by those who seek magical knowledge. Followers who triumph over their foes can call upon the Loreminder for magical power and the ability to cast spells beyond their magical training. The devout are rewarded with a supply of spellbooks taken directly from Sif Muna's legendary library. Sif Muna grants followers the ability to rapidly restore their magical energy, and to forget spells at will, so as to learn new ones. Worshippers can call upon the Loreminder to help cast any spell they've discovered, even if it's well beyond their current magical training. Over time, devout followers will receive spellbooks containing a vast range of spells. Sif Muna likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings.

Sif Muna the Loreminder is a contemplative but powerful deity, served by those who seek magical knowledge.

Restrictions

• Djinn, unable to learn spells from books, are unable to worship Sif Muna.
• Demigods may not worship Sif Muna (or any other deity).

Appreciates

• Killing living, undead, demonic, holy, and nonliving creatures.

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• Abandonment.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Disciple"

• No new abilities.

Piety level *: "Student"

• Channel magic: 3-5 MP restored per turn for 3 + 2d(2/3 * Invocations)/2 turns (avg. 3 + Invocations/3 turns). (2-3 piety)

Piety level **: "Adept"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ***: "Scribe"

• Forget spells at will: Works as a scroll of amnesia. (8-12 piety)

Piety level ****: "Scholar"

• Divine Exegesis: Will cast any spell in your library. The spellpower for this cast uses the usual spell skills, enhancers, etc. but also receives a bonus of 1.5 * the spellpower as if Invocations were the spell's only school. (12-18 piety)
  • Note that even though Exegesis itself doesn't cost MP, you still need to have enough magic points to cast the selected spell.

Piety level *****: "Sage"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ******: "Genius of the Arcane"

• No new abilities.

Gifts

Piety level *****:

• Spell books. Each spell book is either an ordinary spell book (24%), a Theme randart spell book (73%) or a Level randart spell book (2%).

Ordinary spell books are the kind you find lying around the dungeon, and are weighted toward ones with spells you don't have in your other spell books. Theme randart spell books will contain several spells on a given theme (not necessarily a magic school). Level randart spell books will contain several spells with a given level (up to your XL). A high Spellcasting skill will grant better artefact spellbooks. Sif Muna's randart books will be larger than those found in the dungeon - they will be around 6 spells in size.

Sif Muna's gift timeout between books is dependent on the number of spells it has: 9 + (spell_count * 6) + (2d19)/2.

Punishments

Sif Muna does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Those in Sif Muna's ill graces find the very forces of magic rebelling against them. They are confused and stupefied, their magical reserves drained, their enchantments unravelled. Casting spells, too, becomes unreliable - and even dangerous.

If you leave Sif Muna (voluntarily or not), your penance counter will be set to 50 (quite high!), but no immediate negative events will happen. Possible punishments include:

• 30%: Temporary decrease in Intelligence by up to 20%
• 30%: Confusion for 5-7 turns
• 20%: All MP drained
• 10%: Reduction of the remaining duration of all magic enchantments affecting you to 0 or 10 auts (11 for Flight). This is identical to the effects of a potion of cancellation.

Every time you cast a spell, there's a 5% chance that the failure rate will be increased by a percentage equal to your current penance. This is in addition to normal punishments, and will not reduce your penance.

Strategy

Sif Muna is the plain "magic god", favored by characters who want to pursue that path without focusing on the destructive (Vehumet) or necromantic (Kikubaaqudgha) sides of magic. Instead, Sif Muna is much more versatile. Sif Muna's spell book gifts are weighted to contain spells you don't already have, allowing you to eventually gain access to every spell in the game.

The main draw of following Sif Muna, aside from spellbooks, is access to additional MP. Channel Magic gives MP quickly over time; players can spend their time retreating, meleeing, or otherwise delaying your opponents (Hexes, Mephitic Clouds, summoned monsters...). At 9 Invocations (a modest investment at mid game), Channel Magic recovers an average of 26 MP, with 3-5 MP recovered per turn. Channel Magic has a relatively low piety cost, so don't be afraid to use it.

Sif Muna faces stiff competition with other magic-focused gods. Sif's book gifts come extremely late, and each book comes somewhat slowly. In contrast, Vehumet and Kiku gift predictable, focused, and potentially useful spells from 1*. In addition, both gods provide more direct support in the art of killing. So magical backgrounds that already cast spells, as expected, have the greatest reason to pick Sif.

Tips & Tricks

• Divine Exegesis will seem very weak and very expensive with most direct damage spells, due to their (likely) low spellpower. It really shines with those with special effects:
  • Summon Horrible Things and Dragon's Call are easily on the level of Trog's Brothers in Arms for most of the early- to mid-game, with the added benefit of summoning multiple monsters with 1 cast.
  • Shatter allows you to break stone walls. Other abilities that break stone walls, like Fedhas' Overgrowth, have similarly high piety costs.
  • Death's Door and Borgnjor's Revivification are excellent last resorts, giving you time or giving you a costly max heal, respectively.
  • Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling can take down the most lethal uniques and solo threats to your character in a few turns of channeling.
• Exegesis is still quite the expensive ability, but remember that Sif doesn't have many abilities to use piety on, and that Channeling can be activated long after you lose access to Exegesis. If you've gotten all the spells you need, there's little actual cost to the high piety cost.
• An amulet of faith early on will allow you to receive spellbooks much faster. Sif worshippers often struggle to get to 6* of piety, anyway. Meanwhile, an amulet of guardian spirit can make use of the 3-5 MP regeneration per turn, and channeling insures you won't run out of MP for actual casting.
• Sif can still be useful for heavy melee fighters, as Divine Exegesis offers some of the strongest panic buttons in the game. However, it's far from an ideal choice. Unless you have guardian spirit, Sif only starts benefiting you at 4* piety... if you have some Invocations investment and happen to get a relevant spell.

When Sif Muna's altar is missing from the Ecumenical Temple, keep a look out for wide hallways with blue floor tiles; when Sif's altar is not in Temple, it often has such a hallway preceding the altar proper. Regardless, like other altars, it is guaranteed to appear at least once between floors 2-10 of the main dungeon.

History

• In 0.27, Sif's gifting speed was adjusted and made generally slower. Previously, the gift timeout was 39 + (2d19)/2. It is now reliant on spells given. Sif randart books remained the same size, but regular books became smaller. In addition, the chance to actually receive a gift after reaching 0 gift timeout was reduced. This change was intended to increase Sif worshipper's piety (since gifts lower piety gain).
• Prior to 0.27, Sif could not gift the Book of Annihilations, Grand Grimoire, or Necronomicon.
• Prior to 0.24, Channel Energy was a Piety level *** ability. Divine Energy was the old Piety level * ability; allowing users to cast without sufficient MP in exchange for a temporary -Cast status. Also prior to this version, Sif Muna granted protection from miscast effects and awarded piety for training magic skills.
• Prior to 0.20, Divinations miscast effects were directly used in Sif Muna's wrath; those replicated already existing wrath effects.
• Prior to 0.19, Channel Energy was a Piety level * ability that instantly granted d(2+[Invocations/4]) MP for 100-200 hunger at a 0 - piety/20 - floor(Invocations skill * 2.0) failure rate, and spellbook gifts began at Piety level ******. Followers gained piety solely for training magic skills. Also, Sif Muna disapproved destroying spellbooks.
• Prior to 0.15, Sif Muna's wrath was able to force you to forget a spell.